A perspective of religion

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “religion” to be “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices”, “the service and worship of God or the supernatural, commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance” and “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith”

Now, you possibly will fit in any one of these definitions. In fact, the reality we are shown does fit in that. Well, what is reality? When we are born, we are agitated and disturbed, because we find ourselves randomly thrown into this world. Then we accept the reality our parents tell us, so there is no cognitive dissonance. And when our version of reality is questioned, it causes ontological insecurity, and psychiatrists are finding out that the pain of coming to terms with your reality being a lie, is almost equal to the pain of stabbing a knife through your back. It may cause people to lose their sleep.

Ontological insecurity

The possible ranks are higher than the actual ones. ― Martin Heidegger

So before you read this, I suggest you keep an open mind.

When we talk about religion, we must keep in mind that we are referring to homo sapiens. Because there was a time in our history when we had shared the earth with other humanoids and lived like brothers. The history of what happened to the Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other species is unclear. A plausible theory is that they were wiped out by Homo sapiens. We not only annihilated them but also cross-breed with them causing traces of their DNA to exist to date.

A painting of the Neanderthals

It has been said that Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world. There’s just one thing wrong about this and that is Hinduism is not the oldest religion in the world. It is the Vedic religion. Believe it or not, both have stark differences and I’ll explain how. The Vedic religion began with the entry of the Aryans, better known as Indo-Europeans, who came out of Africa to the Caspian sea and then along the Persian stretch to India. A piece of environmental history that serves as evidence for this theory is that the Gangetic Plain used to be covered in thick forests and when the Indo-Europeans came, they had to burn millions of acres of forestland to clear the area. Language is also a big giveaway. The people from the North of the Caucasus mountains separated. One group went to Europe and languages like Celtic and Kurdish were written, while the other group came east through central Asia writing a Proto-Indo-Persian language. This is also why Persian and Sanskrit share a huge number of similarities. One such example is that the Persians could not pronounce the letter “s” and so replaced it with “h”, so when the Sindhu river was founded they named the land Hindustan. Therefore “Hindu” is originally a Persian word. Also from the Aryans right up to the Mughals, horses have always been imported to India. This might be a lesser-known fact but horses are not indigenous to India. The climate is not suitable for them to breed and live disease-free.

A wall carving from the time of the Indus Valley Civilzation

Coming back to the Indo-Europeans, it is here that the Vedic religion supposedly began. The Vedic religion was mostly paganistic and sacrificial. Fire sacrifices are the main mode of worship. The main Gods were Indra, Mitra, and Varuna, all of which were natural forces. For the people of that time, this religion sufficed all of their questions and needs. The hunter-gatherer converted to a sedentary lifestyle inventing agriculture would sacrifice to the Gods of rain and wind for better crops. Civilization begins with agriculture. Once agriculture becomes popular, a small population of people is relieved from the task of gathering food as the farmers are producing enough to sleep with a full stomach. This leads to the introduction of specific roles in society such as a warrior, an artist, a king, etc. This hierarchical mode of society makes civilization more productive. Now more people can work to produce literature and philosophy. Hence society is much more complex now. Notice the trajectory we have traveled, from a nomadic and tribal civilization to a productive and complex society.

Village life was the new standard

This complexity and size of society produce new questions which now can’t be answered by the primitive and old religions. Hence giving rise to axial religions which believe in more abstract thought. As a person moves into specific roles, he settles into a sedentary lifestyle and doesn’t have to worry about how he will keep his child alive or how he will gather food for the night. This causes him to have more time to ponder about the ultimate questions of life. The questions of life and death. Voila! You have a new religion. Here’s where Hinduism comes in. The main Gods are Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer. These came to be known as “Devas”, which comes from the Greek word, “Deus” meaning God or the shining ones. A religion that covers all aspects of our existence is thus born. This is also known as the Vedantic religion. “Ved” means the Vedas, a way of life, and “ant” means end. The end of the Vedas. Another axial religion is Buddhism which preaches about death to end all deaths, karma, and universal morality.

A mural of the Vedic dieties

So what is religion? Religion is an answer. An answer to the questions we need, to live. Now let us travel a bit to the west which is home to other world religions.

Saudi Arabia back then was divided into two geographical areas, Naj being the Central desert land and Hijaz being the coast of the Red Sea. Prophet Muhammad was born here in Mecca to parents Abdullah and Amina in the House of Banu Hashim, a subgroup of the Quresh tribe. After his parent’s death, he lived with his uncle Abu Talib. At that time, Arabia was bordered by the Byzantine Empire and the Iranian empire. Some of the pre-existing religions of that part of the world were Judaism and Egyptian.

A depiction of life in Arabia during the birth of Islam

Now Judaism has theories of its own. In my opinion, Jews are the most unlucky bunch of people to have walked the face of the earth. There have faced extradition after extradition. First, Nebuchadnezzar II brought them as slaves to Babylon. Second, Cyrus the great actually freed them from slavery but annexed the lands into the Iranian Empire. And lastly the Roman Empire. Also not to forget Der Fuhrer himself had given the Jews a pretty hard time trying to not go extinct. The Old Testament is actually thought to be the beginning of Judaism. But there’s actually a different theory the Jews believe. According to them, Abraham came to Babylon and had two sons, Issac and Ishmael. Issac went on to become a prophet of Christianity and Ishmael became a prophet of Islam. On the other hand, Moses came to Egypt and his son Aaron wrote the Torah or the Ten Commandments which are the religious texts of Jews. Here’s where Islam, Judaism, and Christianity share similarities like David or Dawood and Solomon or Sulaiman. Actually, these religions can be traced back to one origin or proto-religion.

An old picture of Jews outside a synagogue

Zarathustra or Zoroaster was an Iranian prophet who came forward around 1000 BCE as the first human who claimed to be a messenger of a higher power. He is said to be the founder of Zoroastrianism which is basically the ancient Persian/Parsee religion. He preached of a messiah who will liberate us on judgment day and will be born of a virgin. He gave us the concepts of light forces and dark forces and heaven and hell. As you can see, these are the basic frameworks of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Hence, modern-day Parsees know a lot of the stories from the Old Testament, commonly known as the Hebrew Bible.

Zoroastrians worshipped a god or a supernatural force called Ahura Mazda, and the dark forces as preached by Zoroaster were creatures called Daivas. Earlier in this article, I had mentioned the Persian language replacement for “s” to be “h”. In Hinduism, we called the forces of light to be Devas and the dark forces to be Asuras. I don’t think I need to explain the obvious similarity here.

A peice of Persian artwork

In fact, one of the oldest kings of Northern Syria was named Asur Banipal. Clearly an Indian name.

Hence the point of telling you all this history is that religion is a technology. It has always been one, sometimes to bring people together and sometimes to move us apart. Technology comes from the Greek word, “technique” which means the way of doing something, similar to the Sanskrit word “तकनीक”. (languages astound me).

Therefore, what I want to say is that religion serves as hope, courage, and belief to millions of people. And no one has the right to steal the beliefs of other people. Religion is the creation of man. And it is probably the biggest weapon in the world. Yes, even more, dangerous than nuclear weapons. The incorrect usage of this technology cannot be permitted and we need to always remember the foundational religion of humanity which we all as humans share. After all, nobody has the right to impose any limitations on the personal usage of this technology but our primary and underlying faith must be humanity.

Religion brings people together

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..” ― John Milton, Paradise Lost